USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) Made its first flight on 27 Aug. 1924, over Lake Constance (Bodensee), in Germany. The construction of this airship was partially funded by German World War I reparations. In the USA, her hydrogen lifting gas was replaced with non-flammable helium. This greatly increased her safety, but also significantly reduced her payload and range.
This image shows ZR-3 rising out-of-control to a near-vertical position, while moored at the high mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, on 25 August 1927. This incident resulted from the sudden arrival of a cold air front that lifted the airship’s tail, causing it to rise before she could swing around the mast parallel to the new wind direction, demonstrating the risks involved with high mooring masts.
ZR-3 left her hangar for the last time in Nov. 1937, and within a few months she had been reduced to scrap.